CHICAGO (AP) - Call it a reward, or just "bribery." Whichever it is, many parents today readily admit to buying off their children, who get goodies for anything from behaving in a restaurant to sleeping all night in their own beds. Often, the rewards are for behaviors their own parents would have simply expected, just because they said so.
The new dynamic—sometimes seen as a backlash to that strictness—has some parenting experts wondering if today's parents have gone too soft.
"It's definitely more our generation," Kirsten Whipple, a 35-year-old mom in Northbrook, Ill., says with a quiet laugh. "I'm sure our parents would be appalled if they knew how much we bribe our children."...
Dr. Joel Beeke | 1/4/2009
